Pepita Ximenez Part 14

Don Luis hastened his steps that he might reach Pepita's house as soon after the appointed hour as was now possible, and shortly found himself in the village.

The village presented a most animated scene. Young girls flocked to wash their faces at the fountain on the common--those who had sweethearts, that their sweethearts might remain faithful to them; and those who had not, that they might obtain sweethearts. Here and there women and children were returning from the fields, with verbena, branches of rosemary, and other plants, which they had been gathering, to burn as a charm. Guitars tinkled on every side, words of love were to be overheard, and everywhere happy and tender couples were to be seen walking together. The vigil and the early morning of St. John's day, although a Christian festival, still retain a certain savor of paganism and primitive naturalism. This may be because of the approximate concurrence of this festival and the summer solstice. In any case, the scene to-night was of a purely mundane character, without any religious mixture whatever. All was love and gallantry. In our old romances and legends the Moor always carries off the beautiful Christian princess, and the Christian knight receives the reward of his devotion to the Moorish princess, on the eve or in the early morning of St. John's day; and the traditionary custom of the old romances had been, to all appearances, preserved in the village.

The streets were full of people. The whole village was out of doors, in addition to the strangers from the surrounding country. Progress, thus rendered extremely difficult, was still further impeded by the mult.i.tude of little tables laden with _nougat_, honey-cakes, and toast, fruit-stalls, booths for the sale of dolls and toys, and cake-shops, where gypsies, young and old, by turns fried the dough, tainting the air with the odor of oil, weighed and served the cakes, responded with ready wit to the compliments of the gallants who pa.s.sed by, and told fortunes.

Don Luis sought to avoid meeting any of his acquaintances, and, when he caught sight by chance of any one he knew, he turned his steps in another direction. Thus, by degrees, he reached the entrance to Pepita's house without having been stopped or spoken to by any one. His heart now began to beat with violence, and he paused a moment to recover his serenity. He looked at his watch; it was almost half-past ten.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed; "she has been waiting for me nearly half an hour."

He then hurried his pace and entered the hall. The lamp by which it was always lighted was burning dimly on this particular evening.

No sooner had Don Luis entered the hall than a hand, or rather a talon, seized him by the right arm. It belonged to Antonona, who said to him under her breath:

"A pretty fellow you are, for a collegian! Ingrate! good-for-nothing!

vagabond! I began to think you were not coming. Where have you been, imbecile? How dare you delay, as if you had no interest in the matter, when the salt of the earth is melting for you, and the sum of beauty awaits you?"

While Antonona was giving utterance to these complaints, she did not stand still, but continued to go forward, dragging after her by the arm the now cowed and silent collegian. They pa.s.sed the grated door, which Antonona closed carefully and noiselessly behind them. They crossed the court-yard, ascended the stairs, pa.s.sed through some corridors and two interjacent apartments, and arrived at last at the door of the library, which was closed.

Profound silence reigned throughout the house. The library was situated in its interior, and was thus inaccessible to the noises of the street.

The only sounds that reached it, confused and vague, were the shaking of the castanets, the tinkle of the guitar, and the murmur of the voices of Pepita's servants, who were holding their impromptu dance in the farm-house.

Antonona opened the door of the library and pushed Don Luis toward it, at the same time announcing him in these words:

"Here is Don Luis, who has come to take leave of you."

This announcement being made with due ceremony, the discreet Antonona withdrew, leaving the visitor and her mistress at their ease, and closing behind her the door of the outer saloon.

At this point in our narrative we can not refrain from calling attention to the character of authenticity that stamps the present history, and paying a tribute of admiration to the scrupulous exactness of the person who composed it. For, were the incidents related in these _paralipomena_ fict.i.tious, as in a novel, there is nor the least doubt but that an interview so important and of such transcendent interest as that of Pepita and Don Luis would have been brought about by less vulgar means than those here employed. Perhaps our hero and heroine, in the course of some new excursion into the country, might have been surprised by a sudden and frightful tempest, thus finding themselves obliged to take refuge in the ruins of some ancient castle or Moorish tower, with the reputation, of course, of being haunted by ghosts or other supernatural visitants. Perhaps our hero and heroine might have fallen into the power of a party of bandits, from whom they would have escaped, thanks to the presence of mind and courage of Don Luis; taking shelter afterward for the night--they two alone, and without the possibility of avoiding it--in a cavern or grotto. Or, finally, perhaps the author would have arranged the matter in such a way as that Pepita and her vacillating admirer would have been obliged to make a journey by sea, and, although at the present day there are neither pirates nor Algerine corsairs, it is not difficult to invent a good s.h.i.+pwreck, during which Don Luis could have saved Pepita's life, taking refuge with her afterward on a desert island, or some other equally romantic and solitary place. Any one of these devices would more artfully prepare the way for the tender colloquy of the lovers, and would better serve to exculpate Don Luis. We are of the opinion, nevertheless, that, instead of censuring the author for not having had recourse to such complications as those we have mentioned, we ought rather to thank him for his conscientiousness in sacrificing to the truth of his relation the marvelous effect he might have produced, had he ventured to ornament and adorn it with incidents and episodes drawn from his own fancy.

If the means by which this interview was brought about were, in reality, only the officiousness and the skill of Antonona, and the weakness with which Don Luis acceded to her request that he should grant it, why forge lies, and cause the two lovers to be impelled, as it were, by Fate, to see and speak with each other alone, to the great danger of the virtue and honor of both? There was nothing of this. Whether Don Luis did well or ill in keeping his appointment, and whether Pepita Ximenez, whom Antonona had already told that Don Luis was coming of his own accord to see her, did well or ill in rejoicing over that somewhat mysterious and inopportune visit, let us not throw the blame on Fate, but on the personages themselves who figure in this history, and on the pa.s.sions by which they are actuated. We confess to a great affection for Pepita; but the truth is before everything, and must be declared, even should it be to the prejudice of our heroine.

At eight o'clock, then, Antonona had told her that Don Luis was coming, and Pepita, who had been talking of dying, whose eyes were red, whose eyelids were slightly inflamed with weeping, and whose hair was in some disorder, thought of nothing, thereafter, but of adorning and arranging herself for the purpose of receiving Don Luis. She bathed her face with warm water, so that the ravages her tears had made might be effaced to the exact point of leaving her beauty unimpaired, while still allowing it to be seen that she had wept. She arranged her hair, so as to display, rather than a studied care in its arrangement, a certain graceful and artistic carelessness, that fell short of disorder, however, which would have been indecorous; she polished her nails, and, as it was not fit that she should receive Don Luis in a wrapper, she put on a simple house-dress. In fine, she managed instinctively that all the details of her toilet should concur in heightening her beauty and grace, but without allowing any trace to be perceived of the art, the labor, and the time employed in the details. She would have it appear, on the contrary, as if all this beauty and grace were the free gift of nature, something inherent in her person, no matter how she might, owing to the vehemence of her pa.s.sions, neglect it on occasion.

Pepita, so far as we have been able to discover, spent more than an hour in these labors of the toilet, which were to be perceived only by their results. She then, with ill-concealed satisfaction, gave herself the final touch before the looking-gla.s.s. At last, at about half-past nine, taking a candle in her hand, she descended to the apartment, in which was the _Infant Jesus_. She first lighted the altar-candles which had been extinguished; she saw with something of sorrow that the flowers were drooping; she asked pardon of the sacred Image for neglecting it so long, and, throwing herself on her knees before it, prayed in her solitude with her whole heart, and with that frankness and confidence that a guest inspires who has been so long an inmate of the house. Of a _Jesus of Nazareth_ bearing the cross upon his shoulders, and crowned with thorns; of an _Ecce h.o.m.o_, insulted and scourged, with a reed for derisive scepter, and his hands bound with a rough cord; of a _Christ crucified_, bleeding and moribund, Pepita would not have dared to ask what she now asked of a Saviour, still a child, smiling, beautiful, untouched by suffering, and pleasing to the eye. Pepita asked him to leave her Don Luis; not to take him away from her, since he, who was so rich and so well provided with everything, might, without any great sacrifice, deny himself this one of his servants, and give him up to her.

Having completed these preparations, which we may cla.s.sify as cosmetic, indumentary, and religious, Pepita installed herself in the library, and there awaited the arrival of Don Luis with feverish impatience.

Antonona had acted with prudence in not telling her mistress that Don Luis was coming to see her until a short time before the appointed hour.

Even as it was, thanks to the delay of the gallant, poor Pepita, from the moment in which she had finished her prayers and supplications to the _Infant Jesus_, to that in which she beheld Don Luis standing in the library, was a prey to anguish and disquietude.

The visit began in the most grave and ceremonious manner. The customary salutations were mechanically interchanged, and Don Luis, at the invitation of Pepita, seated himself in an easy-chair, without laying aside his hat or cane, and at a short distance from her. Pepita was seated on the sofa; beside her was a little table on which were some books, and a candle, the light from which illuminated her countenance.

On the desk also burned a lamp. Notwithstanding these two lights, however, the apartment, which was large, remained for the greater part in obscurity. A large window, which looked out on an inner garden, was open on account of the heat; and although the grating of the window was covered with climbing roses and jasmine, the clear beams of the moon penetrated through the interlaced leaves and flowers, and struggled with the light of the lamp and candle. Through the open window came, too, the distant and confused sounds of the dance at the farm-house, which was at the other extremity of the garden, the monotonous murmur of the fountain below, and the fragrance of the jasmine and roses that curtained the window, mingled with that of the mignonette, sweet-basil, and other plants that adorned the borders beneath.

There was a long pause--a silence as difficult to maintain as it was to break. Neither of the two interlocutors ventured to speak. The situation was, in truth, embarra.s.sing. They found it as difficult to express themselves then, as we find it now to reproduce their words; but there is nothing else for it than to make the effort. Let us allow them to speak for themselves, transcribing their words with exact.i.tude.

"So you have finally condescended to come and take leave of me before your departure," said Pepita; "I had already given up the hope that you would do so."

The part Don Luis had to perform was a serious one; and, besides this, in this kind of dialogue, the man, not only if he be a novice, but even when he is old in the business and an expert, is apt to begin with some piece of folly. Let us not condemn Don Luis, therefore, because he also began unwisely.

"Your complaint is unjust," he said. "I came here with my father to take leave of you, and, as we had not the pleasure of being received by you, we left cards. We were told that your health was somewhat delicate, and we have sent every day since to inquire for you. We were greatly pleased to learn that you were improving. I hope you are now much better."

"I am almost tempted to say I am no better," answered Pepita, "but, as I see that you have come as the emba.s.sador of your father, and I do not want to distress so excellent a friend, it is but right that I should tell you, that you may repeat it to him, that I am much better now. But it is strange that you have come alone. Don Pedro must be very much occupied indeed, not to accompany you."

"My father did not accompany me, madam, because he does not know that I have come to see you. I have chosen to come without him because my farewell must be a serious, a solemn, perhaps a final one, and his will naturally be of a very different character. My father will return to the village in a few weeks; it is possible that I may never return to it, and, if I do, it will be in a very different character from my present one."

Pepita could not restrain herself. The happy future of which she had dreamed vanished, at the words of Don Luis, into air. Her unalterable resolution to vanquish, at whatever cost, this man, the only one she had loved in her life, the only one she felt herself capable of loving, seemed to have been made in vain. She felt herself condemned at twenty years of age, with all her beauty, to perpetual widowhood, to solitude, to an unrequited love--for any other love was impossible for her. The character of Pepita, in whom obstacles only strengthened and kindled afresh her desires, with whom a determination, once taken, carried everything before it until it was fulfilled, showed itself now in all its violence and without restraint. She must conquer, or die in the attempt. Social considerations, the fixed habit of guarding and concealing the feelings, acquired in the great world, which serve as a restraint to the paroxysms of pa.s.sion, and which veil in ambiguous phrases, and dilute in circ.u.mlocutions, the most violent explosion of undisciplined emotion, had no power with Pepita. She had had but little intercourse with the world, she knew no middle way; her only rule of conduct hitherto had been to obey blindly her mother and her husband while they lived, and afterward to command despotically every other human being. Thus it was that Pepita spoke her own thoughts on this occasion, and showed herself such as she really was. Her soul, with all the pa.s.sion it contained, took sensible form in her words; and her words, instead of serving to conceal her thoughts and her feelings, gave them substance. She did not speak as a lady of our _salons_ would have spoken, with circ.u.mlocutions and attenuations of expression, but with that idyllic frankness with which Chloe spoke to Daphnis, and with the humility and the complete self-abandonment with which the daughter-in-law of Naomi offered herself to Boaz.

"Do you then persist in your purpose?" she asked. "Are you sure of your vocation? Are you not afraid of being a bad priest? Don Luis, I am going to make a supreme effort. I am going to forget that I am an uncultured girl; I am going to dispense with all sentiment, and to reason as coldly as if it were concerning the matter most indifferent to me. Things have taken place that may be explained in two ways; both explanations do you discredit. I will show you what my thoughts are. If the woman who, with her coquetries--not very daring ones, in truth--almost without a word, and but a few days after seeing and speaking to you for the first time, has been able to provoke you, to move you to look at her with glances that betokened a profane love, and has even obtained from you a proof of that love that would be a fault, a sin, in any one, but is so especially in a priest--if this woman be, as she indeed is, a simple country-girl, without education, without talent, and without elegance, what is not to be feared of you when in great cities you see and converse with other women a thousand times more dangerous? Your head will be turned when you are thrown into the society of the great ladies who dwell in palaces, who tread on soft carpets, who dazzle the eye with their diamonds and pearls, who are clad in silks and laces instead of muslin and percale, who leave bare the white and well-formed throat instead of covering it with a plebeian and modest handkerchief, who are adepts in all the arts of coquetry, and who, by reason of the very ostentation, luxury, and pomp that surround them, are all the more desirable for being apparently more inaccessible; who discuss politics, philosophy, religion, and literature; who sing like canaries, who are enveloped, as it were, in clouds of incense, adoration and homage, set upon a pedestal of triumphs and of victories, glorified by the prestige of an ill.u.s.trious name, enthroned in gilded saloons, or secluded in voluptuous boudoirs, where enter only the blest ones of the earth, its t.i.tled ones, perhaps, who only to their most intimate friends are "Pepita," "Antonita," or "Angelita," and to the rest of the world, "Her Grace the d.u.c.h.ess," or "the Marchioness." If you have yielded to the arts of an uncultured peasant when you were on the eve of being ordained, and in spite of all the enthusiasm for your calling that you may naturally be supposed to entertain--if you have thus yielded, urged by a pa.s.sing impulse, am I not right in foreseeing that you will make an abominable priest, impure, worldly, and of evil influence, and that you will yield to temptation at every step? On such a supposition as this, believe me, Don Luis--and do not be offended with me for saying so--you are not even worthy to be the husband of an honest woman. If, with all the ardor and tenderness of the most pa.s.sionate lover, you have pressed the hand of a woman, if you have looked at one, with glances that foretold a heaven, an eternity of love, if you have kissed a woman that inspired you with no other feeling than one that for me has no name, then go, in G.o.d's name, and do not marry her! If she is virtuous, she will not desire you for a husband, nor even for a lover; but, for G.o.d's sake, do not become a priest either! The Church needs men more serious, more capable of resisting temptation, as ministers of the Most High.

"If, on the other hand, you have felt a n.o.ble pa.s.sion for the woman of whom we are speaking, although she be of little worth, why abandon and deceive her with so much cruelty? However unworthy she may be, if she has inspired this great pa.s.sion, do you not suppose that she will share it, and be the victim of it? For, when a love is great, elevated, and pa.s.sionate, does it ever fail to make its power felt? Does it not tyrannize over and subjugate the beloved object irresistibly? By the extent of your love for her you may measure that of her you love. And how can you avoid fearing for her, if you abandon her? Has she the masculine energy, the firmness of character produced by the wisdom learned from books, the attraction of fame, the mult.i.tude of splendid projects, and all the resources of your cultured and exalted intellect, to distract her mind, and turn her away, without destructive violence, from every other earthly affection? Can you not see that she will die of grief, and that you, called by your destiny to offer up bloodless sacrifices, will begin by pitilessly sacrificing her who most loves you?"

"I too, madam," returned Don Luis, endeavoring to conquer his emotion, and to speak with firmness--"I too, madam, am obliged to make a great effort in order to answer you with the calmness necessary to one who opposes argument to argument, as in a controversy; but your accusation is supported by so many reasons, and you have invested those reasons--pardon me for saying so--with so specious an appearance of truth, that I have no choice left me but to disprove them by other reasons. I had no thought of being placed in the necessity of maintaining a discussion here, and of sharpening my poor wits for that purpose; but you compel me to do so, unless I wish to pa.s.s for a monster. I am going to reply to the two extremes of the cruel dilemma in which you have placed me. Though it is true that my youth was pa.s.sed in my uncle's house and in the seminary, where I saw nothing of women, do not therefore think me so ignorant, or possessed of so little imagination, that I can not picture to myself how lovely, how seductive they may be. My imagination, on the contrary, went far beyond the reality. Excited by the reading of the sacred writers and of profane poets, it pictured women more charming, more graceful, more intelligent, than they are commonly to be found in real life. I knew then, and I even exaggerated to myself, the cost of the sacrifice I was making, when I renounced the love of those women for the purpose of elevating myself to the dignity of the priesthood. I know well how much the charms of a beautiful woman are enhanced by rich attire, by splendid jewels, by being surrounded with all the arts of refined civilization, all the objects of luxury produced by the indefatigable labor and the skill of man. I knew well, too, how much the natural cleverness of a woman is increased, how much her natural intelligence is sharpened, quickened, and brightened by intercourse with scientific men, by the reading of good books, even by the familiar spectacle of the wealth and splendor of great cities, and of the monuments of the past that they contain. All this I pictured to myself with so much vividness, my fancy painted it in such glowing colors, that you need have no doubt that, should I be thrown into the society of those women of whom you speak, far from feeling the adoration and the transports you prophesy, I shall rather experience a disenchantment on seeing how great a distance there is between what I dreamed of and the truth, between the living reality and the picture of it that my fancy drew."

"This is indeed specious reasoning," exclaimed Pepita. "How can I deny that what you have pictured in your imagination is, in truth, more beautiful than what exists in reality? but who will deny, either, that the real possesses a more seductive charm than that which exists only in the imagination? The vagueness and etherealness of a phantasm, however beautiful it may be, can not compete with what is palpable and visible to the senses. I can understand that holy images might exercise a more powerful influence over your spirit than the pictures of mundane beauty created by your fancy, but I fear that those holy images will not prove equally powerful where mundane realities are concerned."

"Have no such fear, madam," returned Don Luis. "My fancy possesses, by its own creations, more power over my spirit than does the whole universe--only excepting yourself--by what it transmits to it through the senses."

"And why except me? Such an exception gives room to the suspicion that the idea you have of me, the idea which you love, may be but the creation of this potent fancy of yours, and an illusion that resembles me in nothing."

"No, this is not the case. You may be a.s.sured that this idea resembles you in everything. It may be that it is innate in my soul, that it has existed in it since it was created by G.o.d, that it is a part of its essence, the best and purest part of its being, as the perfume is of the flower."

"This is what I had feared, and now you confess it to me. You do not love me. What you love is the essence, the fragrance, the purest part of your own soul, that has a.s.sumed a form resembling mine."

"No, Pepita; do not seek to amuse yourself in tormenting me. What I love is you--and you such as you really are; but what I love is also so beautiful, so pure, so delicate that I can not understand how it should have reached my mind, in a material manner, through the senses. I take it for granted, then, and it is my firm belief, that it must have had an innate existence there. It is like the idea of G.o.d that is inborn in my soul, that has unfolded and developed itself within my soul, and that has, nevertheless, its counterpart in reality, superior, infinitely superior to the idea. As I believe that G.o.d exists, so do I believe that you exist, and that you are a thousand times superior to the idea that I have formed of you."

"Still, I have a doubt left. May it not be woman in general, and not I, solely and exclusively, that has awakened this idea?"

"No, Pepita; before I saw you, I had felt in imagination what might be the magic power, the fascination of a woman, beautiful of soul and graceful in person. There is no d.u.c.h.ess or marchioness in Madrid, no empress in all the world, no queen or princess on the face of the globe, to be compared to the ideals and fantastic creations with whom I have lived. These were inhabitants of the castles and boudoirs, marvels of luxury and taste, that I pleased myself in boyhood by erecting in my fancy, and that I afterward gave as dwelling-places to my Lauras, Beatrices, Juliets, Marguerites, and Leonoras; to my Cynthias, Glyceras, and Lesbias. Them I crowned in my imagination with coronets and Oriental diadems; I clothed them in mantles of purple and gold, and surrounded them with regal pomp like Esther and Vashti; I endowed them, like Rebekah and the Shulamite, with the bucolic simplicity of the patriarchal age; I bestowed on them the sweet humility and the devotion of Ruth; I listened to them discoursing like Aspasia, or Hypatia, mistresses of eloquence; I enthroned them in luxurious drawing-rooms, and cast over them the splendor of n.o.ble blood and ill.u.s.trious lineage, as if they had been the proudest and n.o.blest of patrician maidens of ancient Rome; I beheld them graceful, coquettish, gay, full of aristocratic ease and manner, like the ladies of the time of Louis XIV, in Versailles; and I adorned them, now with the modest _stola_, that inspired veneration and respect; now with diaphanous tunics and _peplums_, through whose airy folds were revealed all the plastic perfections of their graceful forms; now with the transparent _coa_, of the beautiful courtesans of Athens and Corinth, showing the white and roseate hues of the finely molded forms that glowed beneath their vaporous covering. But what are the joys of the senses, what the glory and magnificence of the world, to a soul that burns with and consumes itself in Divine love, as I believed mine, perhaps with too much arrogance, to burn and consume itself? As volcanic fires, when they burst into flame, send flying into air, shattered in a thousand fragments, the solid rocks, the mountain-side itself, that obstruct their pa.s.sage, so, or with even greater force, did my spirit cast from itself the whole weight of the universe and of created beauty that lay upon it and imprisoned it, preventing it from soaring up to G.o.d, as the center of its aspirations. No; I have rejected no delight, no sweetness, no glory, through ignorance. I knew them all, and valued them all at more than their worth, when I rejected them all for a greater delight, a greater sweetness, a greater glory. The profane love of woman presented itself to my fancy, clothed, not only with all its own charms, but with the sovereign and almost irresistible charms of the most dangerous of all temptations--of that which the moralists call virginal temptation--when the mind, not yet undeceived by experience and by sin, pictures to itself in the transports of love a supreme and ineffable delight immeasurably superior to all reality. Ever since I reached manhood--that is to say, for many years past, for my youth was short--I have scorned those delights and that beauty that were but the shadow and the reflex of the archetypal beauty of which I was enamored, of the supreme delight for which I longed. I have sought to die to myself, in order to live in the beloved object, to free, not only my senses, but even my soul itself, from every earthly affection, from illusions and imaginings, in order to be able to say with truth that it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. It may be, nay, it must be, that in this I sinned through arrogance and self-confidence, and that G.o.d has therefore wished to chastise me; and you came across my path, and tempted me, and led me astray. Now you upbraid me, you deride me, you accuse me of levity and of yielding easily to temptation; but in upbraiding me and deriding me you insult yourself, for you thus imply that any other woman might have had equal power over me. I do not wish, when I ought to be humble, to fall into the sin of pride, by trying to justify my fault. If G.o.d, in chastis.e.m.e.nt of my pride, has let me fall from his grace, it is possible that any temptation, however slight, might have made me waver and fall. Yet I confess that I do not think so.

It may be that I err in my judgment that this is but the consequence of my undisciplined pride, but, I repeat, I do not think so. I can not succeed in persuading myself that the cause of my fall had in it anything either mean or base. Above all the dreams of my youthful imagination, the reality, such as I beheld it in you, enthroned itself.

Above all the nymphs, queens, and G.o.ddesses of my fancy, you towered.

Above the ruins of my ideal creations, overthrown and shattered by Divine love, there arose in my soul the faithful image, the exact reproduction of the living beauty that adorns, that is the essence of that body and of that soul. There may be even something mysterious, something supernatural in this; for I loved you from the moment I first saw you--almost before I saw you. Long before I was conscious of loving you, I loved you. It would seem as if there were some fatality in this--that it was decreed, that it was a predestination."

"And if it were predestined, if it be decreed," said Pepita, "why not submit to Fate, why still resist? Sacrifice your purpose to our love.

Have not I sacrificed much? Am I not now sacrificing my pride, my decorum, my reserve, in supplicating you thus, in making this effort to overcome your scorn? I too believe that I loved you before I saw you.

Now I love you with my whole heart, and without you there is no happiness for me. It is true indeed that in my humble intelligence you can find no rival so powerful as that which I have in yours. Neither with the understanding, nor the will, nor the affections, can I raise myself all at once up to G.o.d. Neither by nature nor by grace do I mount or desire to mount up to such exalted spheres. My soul, nevertheless, is full of religious devotion, and I know and love and adore G.o.d; but I only behold his omnipotence and admire his goodness in the works that have proceeded from his hands. Nor can I, with the imagination, weave those visions that you tell me of. Yet I too dreamed of some one n.o.bler, more intelligent, more poetic, and more enamored, than the men who have thus far sought my hand; of a lover more distinguished and accomplished than any of my adorers of this and the neighboring villages, who should love me, and whom I should love, and to whose will I should blindly surrender mine. This some one was you. I had a presentiment of it when they told me that you had arrived at the village. When I saw you for the first time, I knew it. But, as my imagination is so sterile, the picture I had formed of you in my mind was not to be compared, even in the most remote degree, to the reality. I too have read something of romances and poetry. But from all that my memory retained of them, I was unable to form a picture that was not far inferior in merit to what I see and divine in you since I have known you. Thus it is that from the moment I saw you I was vanquished and undone. If love is, as you say, to die to self, in order to live in the beloved object, then is my love genuine and legitimate, for I have died to myself, and live only in you and for you. I have tried to cast this love away from me, deeming it ill-requited, and I have not been able to succeed in doing so. I have prayed to G.o.d with fervor to take away from me this love, or else to kill me, and G.o.d has not deigned to hear me. I have prayed to the Virgin Mary to blot your image from my soul, and my prayer has been in vain. I have made vows to my patron saint to the end that he would enable me to think of you only as he thought of his blessed spouse, and my patron saint has not succored me. Seeing all this, I have had the audacity to ask of Heaven that you would allow yourself to be vanquished, that you would cease to desire to be a priest, that there might spring up in your soul a love as profound as that which is in my heart. Don Luis, tell me frankly, has Heaven been deaf to this last prayer also? Or is it, perchance, that to subjugate a soul as weak, as wretched, and as petty as mine, a petty love is sufficient, while to master yours, protected and guarded as it is by vigorous and lofty thoughts, a more powerful love than mine is necessary, a love that I am neither worthy of inspiring, nor capable of sharing, nor even able to understand?"

"Pepita," returned Don Luis, "it is not that your soul is less than mine, but that it is free from obligations, and mine is not. The love you have inspired me with is profound, but my obligations, my vows, the purpose of my whole life so near to its realization, contend against it.

Why should I not say it without fearing to offend you? If you succeed in making me love you, you do not humiliate yourself. If I succ.u.mb to your love, I humiliate and abase myself. I leave the Creator for the creature. I renounce the unwavering purpose of my life, I break the image of Christ that was in my soul; and the new man, that I had created in myself at such cost, disappears, that the old man may come to life again. Instead of my lowering myself to the earth, to the impurity of the world that I have hitherto despised, why do not you rather elevate yourself to me by virtue of that very love you entertain for me, freeing it from every earthly alloy? Why should we not love each other then without shame, and without sin, and without dishonor? G.o.d penetrates holy souls with the pure and refulgent fire of his love, and fills them with it, so that, like a metal fresh from the forge, that, without ceasing to be a metal, s.h.i.+nes and glitters and is all fire, these souls fill themselves with joy, and are in all things G.o.d, penetrated by G.o.d in every part, through the grace of the Divine love. These souls then love and enjoy each other, as if they loved and enjoyed G.o.d, loving and enjoying him in truth, because they are G.o.d. Let us mount together in spirit this steep and mystical ladder. Let our souls ascend, side by side, to this bliss, which even in this mortal life is possible; but to do this we must separate in the body; it is essential that I should go whither I am called by my duty, my vow, and the voice of the Most High, who disposes of his servant, and has destined him to the service of his altar."

"Ah, Don Luis," replied Pepita, full of sorrow and contrition, "now indeed I see how vile is the metal I am made of, and how unworthy I am that the Divine fire should penetrate and transform me. I will confess everything, casting away even shame: I am a vile sinner; my rude and uncultured understanding can not grasp these subtleties, these distinctions, these refinements of love. My rebellious will refuses what you propose. I can not even conceive of you but as yourself. For me you are your mouth, your eyes, your dark locks that I desire to caress with my hands, your sweet voice, the pleasing sound of your words that fall upon my ears, and charm them through the senses; your whole bodily form, in a word that charms and seduces me, and through which, and only through which, I perceive the invisible spirit, vague and full of mystery. My soul, stubborn, and incapable of these mysterious raptures, will never be able to follow you to those regions whither you would take it. If you soar up to them, I shall remain alone, abandoned, plunged in the deepest affliction. I prefer to die; I deserve death; I desire it.

It may be that after death my soul, loosening or breaking the vile bonds that chain it here, will be able to understand the love with which you desire we should be united. Kill me, then, in order that we may thus love each other; kill me, and then my spirit, set free, will follow you whithersoever you may go, and will journey invisible by your side, watching over your steps, contemplating you with ravishment, penetrating your most secret thoughts, beholding your soul as it is, without the intervention of the senses. But in this life it can not be. I love in you, not only the soul, but the body, and the shadow cast by the body, and the reflection of the body in the mirror and in the water, and the Christian name, and the surname, and the blood, and all that goes to make you such as you are, Don Luis de Vargas; the sound of your voice, your gesture, your gait, and I know not what else besides. I repeat that you must kill me. Kill me without compa.s.sion. No, I am not a Christian; I am a material idolater."

Here Pepita made a long pause. Don Luis knew not what to say, and was silent. Tears bathed the cheeks of Pepita, who continued, sobbing: